Clean Gene wrote in post #17136585I'm more leaning towards rejecting the mindset of don't be cliched, I want to see the real you and what you want to say. The problem with that mentality is that there are more than 7 billion people on the planet, communication is faster than it's ever been, and photography has become accessible to nearly everyone. So yeah...7 billion people making photographs CAN'T result in 7 billion photographers who look unique.

I take your point, but there aren't anywhere near 7 billion people trying to use photography for something other than recording where they were and who else was present.

ziemowit wrote in post #17137055I think we misunderstood the term 'honesty' here. When I say honest, I don't mean 'don't lie'. I meant dig deep enough in yourself to find what is that you truly and uniquely believe to be worth photographing on a serious level.

The distinction, if I understand you, is between honesty and authenticity. Authenticity is hard to explain.

Earlier, I mentioned beliefs. One belief I've acquired is that everyone's mental processing at any moment takes place mostly below consciousness. You don't know everything that's on your mind. You can think faster than it feels like, and you won't be aware of all the steps in this thinking. So, when you see something that strikes you as a good subject for a picture, you may not know all the reasons. Possibly the reasons that were unknown initially will show up in the picture. In this sense, your self becomes visible in your work--more likely in a series of images than in just one.

Talking like this is presumptuous of me. What do the more advanced people say?

talking about influence, I think its fair to mention other arts, cinema obviously, form Bergman, Kurosawa and Herzog to Kar Wai, literature (Beckett, Mann, all the Russians), music etc. I think it all plays a big role. And of course your actual life, just the daily things.

Earlier, I mentioned beliefs. One belief I've acquired is that everyone's mental processing at any moment takes place mostly below consciousness. You don't know everything that's on your mind. You can think faster than it feels like, and you won't be aware of all the steps in this thinking. So, when you see something that strikes you as a good subject for a picture, you may not know all the reasons. Possibly the reasons that were unknown initially will show up in the picture. In this sense, your self becomes visible in your work--more likely in a series of images than in just one.

I remember Winogrand saying smth along the lines of: you see smth and you shoot, if later in post you something else you didn't see before and that now becomes the focus of the frame, that ok as well, its the picture that matters.

Photography has its own language, and as bad as it may sound to some people, accident or oversight also play a big role in it I think.

to change the subject a bit, and stir things up a bit, I remember reading in Geoff Dyer's "the ongoing moment", there was a whole chapter on images from one master that look completely like from another. I've read it too long ago now to sum it up though. I do recommend the book if you're not familiar with it, specially if you feel you lack in the critical theory department.

Each image implies human activity without showing it. Specifically, it has implications for the past. A viewer can infer what happened during an interval before the shutter press. The things occupy their locations temporarily, and they're where they are because someone did something. The bag was stored on the rack. The ball was forgotten on the street. The dog was parked on the sidewalk. The store was closed and emptied. The yellow card was posted on the telephone box and later cut off (and the box itself shows abundant signs of age). So, in each case, the image extends back beyond that instant, and in some cases it also extends into the future. We expect the traveler to pick up her bag, the dog owner to collect his dog. The kids may or may not recover their ball. Another business will move into the storefront. The transitoriness of the card on the phone box was exercised before I got there.

I want to say something like "Your past always comes along with you." If, when you look at these images, none of that comes through, they fail as metaphors.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #17137171Exactly....Then maybe being a photographer is not the best place for them.

No disagreement there. I'm just saying that (in most cases) it's incredibly insulting and presumptuous to accuse an artist of being dishonest when it's far more likely that he's merely blind and has nothing unique to say. If I present a crappy piece of art, then criticize it on those grounds. But the second that someone looks at my work and tells me that I'm being dishonest, that what I'm presenting isn't the real me, then as far as I'm concerned they can get bent. Unless it's the rare case of that person knowing me deeply on a personal level, then what freaking business do they have telling me that my work doesn't honestly reflect my beliefs, values, attitudes, feelings, vision, or overall view on life? Yes, many people cannot see. Those people tend to be called "blind", not "dishonest".

Clean Gene wrote in post #17138489I'm just saying that (in most cases) it's incredibly insulting and presumptuous to accuse an artist of being dishonest when it's far more likely that he's merely blind and has nothing unique to say.

Did you miss this in one of Z's posts?

ziemowit wrote in post #17137055I think we misunderstood the term 'honesty' here. When I say honest, I don't mean 'don't lie'. I meant dig deep enough in yourself to find what is that you truly and uniquely believe to be worth photographing on a serious level.

I take "uniquely believe" to mean: find and use something that no one else (that you know of) has found and used. So, yes, an artist who "has nothing unique to say" (Gene, your words) can be called dishonest by this definition, but it's not the common meaning of the word.

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